DELAVAN—Next fall, 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds will have the chance to go to school and to van a escuela as part of the Delavan-Darien School District's new dual language program.

First, however, parents need to learn all about it.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, Delavan-Darien officials are holding an informational meeting for parents interested in enrolling their children in the Spanish and English dual language program. The meeting will be held at Phoenix Middle School library, 414 Beloit St., Delavan.

Dual language is a form of education in which students are taught literacy and content in two languages. Instead of teaching a different language as an additional subject, language is learned along with other subjects such as math and history.

The Beloit School District is the only other district in the area to offer such a program.

Dual language programs have been shown to increase test scores, decrease the achievement gap between Caucasian students and minorities and between English speakers and students learning English as second language.

In the Delavan-Darien School District, the plan is to start the dual language program in the earliest grades and add additional grades as those students move up.

The program is open to English-speaking and Spanish-speaking children who are scheduled to start preschool, kindergarten a first grade in 2014, according to a news release from the district.

Parents who live outside of the district are invited to the program, as well. The state's open enrollment rules allow parents to enroll their children in a different district if space is available.